1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding cards to the embossing apparatus of an automatic embossing system.
2. The Prior Art
Automatic embossing systems for embossing a supply of cards are known in the prior art. One such automatic embossing system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,216 to LaManna, et al., assigned to the assignee of the present application.
The apparatus for feeding cards to the embossing apparatus in the LaManna, et al. patent includes an input hopper and a pair of pole-like card pickers which are driven to push a single card from a stack of cards in the input hopper in order to position the card so that it can be withdrawn by a card carriage which then carries the card through the embossing apparatus. The card pickers are driven by a linkage mechanism which is in turn driven by an eccentric. While the card pickers, linkage mechanism and eccentric of the card feeding apparatus of the LaManna et al patent provide satisfactory operation, they do have certain disadvantages. The complex linkage mechanism has a large number of parts which require adjustment so that the card pickers will operate properly, and which increase the chances that a part may fail. In addition, while the eccentric and linkage mechanism provide sufficient force for picking a single plastic card from a stack of cards, new embossing applications include metal plates and tags, requiring greater driving force than normally required for picking plastic cards, for which the mechanism of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,216 was designed. This is because metal cards may have burrs on their edges (a result of the manufacturing process) which sometimes catch on adjacent cards in the card stack, requiring greater force for picking a metal card from a stack, than for plastic cards. Prior art pole-like card pickers thus may be unsuitable for such new, metal card applications.